Gardening (1 Viewer)

[flashback]

This is yankland, but I looked it up and I overestimated the price a bit.

They start getting mad cheap when you buy a lot. A hundred trees costs you a hundred bucks for example.

I had some land that kept flooding, and was used as a spill for other dickheads who concreted everything over, so I planted these lads:

River Birch - Betula Nigra | Deciduous Trees | Cold Stream Farm

The River Birch Tree (Betula Nigra) is a landscape tree that tolerates wetness, some drought & offers a unique curling bark. Click to purchase from Cold Stream Farm!

www.coldstreamfarm.net

And the place is almost (?) immune to flooding now. It seems no matter how much water is dumped onto the land, the betulas make it vanish. Plus they shade the house, which keeps things cooler. Plus they stop people being able to see into you gaff. Plus they look cool. Plus they give loads of animals a place to live.

Trees man.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Yeah, there's a bunch of trees in various growth stages from the previous owners in this field, but right now the nettles are as tall as a person. Fuckers.

 

[chris d]

start a farming thread culchies.

 

[magicbastarder]

*I shouldn't really say that. You can buy two year old trees as sticks almost, with no soil, in bundles, for very cheap. Something like a fiver a sapling depending on how many you buy.

this is the only part of your post i will quibble with - you can get them *far* cheaper than that, often below a euro each if you buy more than 50 say.

e.g. 40cm birch available from this crowd for 35c each (if you buy 1000)

https://nonesohardy.ie/pricelist/

 

[flashback]

this is the only part of your post i will quibble with - you can get them *far* cheaper than that, often below a euro each if you buy more than 50 say.

e.g. 40cm birch available from this crowd for 35c each (if you buy 1000)

https://nonesohardy.ie/pricelist/

yeah, I realised after I'd written that. It's like a fiver if you're buying one, half that if you're buying 10, and a quid or less once you get into 99+. I went back to check where I'd bought trees from, I'd remembered the first price, not the whole scale.

 

[egg_]

I wouldn't bet on trees shading out brambles. I have 200 alder/birch planted in one part of the garden, and even though they're old enough now (after maybe 8 years) to shade out a lot of undergrowth I still have to weed out the brambles every year. Maybe next year I won't but if I understand it right it depends on the kinds of trees you have and how dense their canopy is, even old growth forest can be pretty impenetrable

 

[egg_]

You yourself will never get rid of brambles.

Well ... depends on what you mean by "get rid of". If you mow often enough to get a lawn there might be brambles in it but you'll never notice them. Even a meadow that you mow once a year doesn't really get too many brambles, at least in my experience - it might have the odd one, but not really a big deal

 

[flashback]

I wouldn't bet on trees shading out brambles. I have 200 alder/birch planted in one part of the garden, and even though they're old enough now (after maybe 8 years) to shade out a lot of undergrowth I still have to weed out the brambles every year. Maybe next year I won't but if I understand it right it depends on the kinds of trees you have and how dense their canopy is, even old growth forest can be pretty impenetrable

I don't think so. Old growth forest is almost defined as having a stable settled understory. The plants that survive long term there will be adapted understory plants: bryophytes, ferns, some low light plants, some plants that are able to shoot up in the spring before the canopy has fully leafed in, that sort of thing. But there won't be impenetrable masses of brambles in the middle of established, closed canopy forests.

Brambles are a pioneer species, found at the interface of established forest and more open land. They don't do well in permanent shade. Any plant that has enough energy stored in its roots will keep coming up for a period of time, even in non ideal circumstances, but it won't be able to do this indefinitely, and once your canopy closes over in your Birch/Alder forest you're going to see less and less brambles over time. (Assuming the trees are in a block, and not strung out (on heroin). If the tress are in a line, then they are all in an interface zone, and you'd expect pioneers like brambles.)

 

[egg_]

once your canopy closes over in your Birch/Alder forest you're going to see less and less brambles over time

Well, fingers crossed. Weeding them out is a pain, even the thick leather gauntlets I have don't keep out all the thorns

 

[flashback]

Well, fingers crossed. Weeding them out is a pain, even the thick leather gauntlets I have don't keep out all the thorns

they have a crazy underground runner system too, which can drive their explorations. If you have a patch even off a bit, that will be shooting out runners.

You can also take a more militant approach by using Oak. Oaks have this ability to secrete more or less weed killer into the area surrounding them while they are in the younger stages, so you'll see these zones around the base of young oaks where ~nothing grows. If you block oaks into an area, these zones will overlap, and the bramble rhizomes won't really mess with them after a fairly short time.

But yeah, what you have going should start making life increasingly more difficult for pioneers as things get more stable, fingers crossed, as you say.

 

[ann post]

Has anyone mentioned making aload of jam before you take them out?

 

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[egg_]

Has anyone mentioned making aload of jam before you take them out?

FWIW they freeze really well, and are one of the few berries that are delicious cooked. We usually freeze a few kg of them if we find the time to pick em

 

[magicbastarder]

I wouldn't bet on trees shading out brambles. I have 200 alder/birch planted in one part of the garden

nice - what sort of other ground flora do you have? or what was there before, pastureland/lawn/etc.?
you could buy some woodland wildflower seeds off yer man sandro cafolla to scatter under them.

 

[egg_]

Before it was rough pasture ... or, rather, what had been pasture but we'd put a couple of drains in and neglected it, so it was all brambly and thistle-y and really churned up, you couldn't really walk through it without risking turning your ankle. I cleared it with the scythe, then levelled it all out with spade/shovel. Now under the trees the obvious things are grasses and nettles and brambles and a few other bits and pieces like buttercups and sticky nelly. It all got more woodland-y kinda suddenly the summer before last - all the undergrowth got much thinner than it used to be. Still plenty of it there, but maybe it'll get thinner still

 

[magicbastarder]

get some wild garlic and underplant it. you'll never run out of wild garlic pesto.
just make sure you get the right kind - a friend gave me a load of bulbs of three cornered leek, telling me it was wild garlic, but it's not.

 

[flashback]

Before it was rough pasture ... or, rather, what had been pasture but we'd put a couple of drains in and neglected it, so it was all brambly and thistle-y and really churned up, you couldn't really walk through it without risking turning your ankle. I cleared it with the scythe, then levelled it all out with spade/shovel. Now under the trees the obvious things are grasses and nettles and brambles and a few other bits and pieces like buttercups and sticky nelly. It all got more woodland-y kinda suddenly the summer before last - all the undergrowth got much thinner than it used to be. Still plenty of it there, but maybe it'll get thinner still

Have you taken photos of the transition by any chance?

 

[egg_]

No, but maybe I should from now on! @magicbastarder there's lots of wild garlic growing around here, but I'm a bit sketchy about digging it up for myself

 

[Anthony]

We have a willow in the front garden that is under a load of overhead wires. We got sick of trying to cut the tree every few months so we had the thing cut back big time. It's only about 4 months later and the willow branches almost touch the ground!

 

[ann post]

residents association looking for lawnmowing money again, i directed them to the all ireland pollinator plan and I could be wrong but they seem to have blocked me off the page for it.

Cans in my front garden forever.